Awesome big sister

Ask my daughter if I can leave the baby (nine months now) playing in her room while I get dressed.

Daughter: "Of course"
Me: "You are an awesome big sister"
Daughter: "Why do you keep saying that?"
Me: "What, that you are an awesome big sister?"
Daughter: "Yes, I already know that"
Me: "So, don't tell you that anymore?"
Daughter: "Right"

She is an awesome big sister BTW.

Houses falling over

My daughter (MLO) is four years old now and she is just putting things together in amazing ways:

We were having guests over for a dinner, I told my husband: "I straightened up the house today".

MLO: "Why? Did it fall over?"

I couldn't even answer because I was laughing so hard.

MLO's deep thoughts

A few little one liners I loved so much I wanted to remember. They all made me laugh so hard:

* "When my body gets bigger how old will I be?"

* Driving home after a long day of errands: "Is this the way to my house? Why did you put my house over here?"

* In response to me asking what the noise she was making was: "Sound of snake with a runny nose".

* Holding a deflated balloon: "the air fell out".

I love how her mind works

Neglect

Wow, I have been neglecting my personal blog.

Life is just going at 100 miles/hour and I haven't had time to even think about a blog post, let along write one.

Everything is going great, my business is booming (part of why I have no time to come here), MLO is growing like a weed and we just got back from a business trip to NY.

Of course, while I was in NY I had to go see a Broadway show (something I have never done before). We saw A Tale of Two Cities, oh my god!!! I am going to do a whole separate post on that show. It was amazing!

This weekend is MLO's birthday and her promised Disneyland trip because she is fully potty-trained.

I joke that other than December, September is our most expensive month (both my birthday and MLOs is in September).

Well, there are some ramblings to at least prove I am still alive and didn't fall of a cliff or anything. Be back again soon (I hope).

Joke

Grandma had MLO for an evening and when I went to go pick her up I got told about the first real joke that MLO told.

They were sitting on MLO's bed and MLO announced she needed to call mommy. This in itself isn't so unusual, she is regularly finding the closest phone and pretending to call her favorite people.

However this time she walked to the edge of the bed and then yelled as loud as she could: "mommy!"

There was a minute of silence and then she shrugged, turned to my mom and said, "I guess she isn't there."

Never use Celebrate Express aka Birthday Express

The moral of everything I am about to say is don't order from Celebrate Express (also known as Birthday Express, Costume Express and 1st Wishes).

MLO's birthday is coming up (she will be three) and I ordered a bunch of theme stuff from them. I decided to get it all shipped 2 Day because I needed the invites to send out.

Package arrives and it has everything, except the invites and thank you notes are for a VERY different theme (ordered Little Einsteins theme package, got Pokeman invites and thank you notes).

I email them and respond saying they will overnight me the correct ones. I am a little bitter because I paid extra for the shipping, but decide if I get the right ones I will be fine, but probably never use them again.

I get the package today and it is the thank you notes. Well I did want those, but the shipping label says invites and there isn't a single invite present.

Okay, now I am annoyed.

I email again, but since it is almost the end of the business day, I decide to go to the live chat. After I forced the issue they might get me what I want, but come on, shouldn't the customer service be a little bit more about the customer service and not answer me with an "ok ok"?

Following is the chat:

May: Hi, my name is May. How may I help you?
Romie: I have had two successive errors in what I shipped which is causing painful delays
Romie: I ordered and paid for 2 day shipping for my package, got the wrong invitations sent and complained. Said they were sending me the correction overnight and I just got them and they are the thank you notes and not the invtations.
Romie: I should have already passed out invitations and want my shipping cost refunded and the correct invitations sent to me
May: I am sorry for the inconvenience that we have caused. I will be happy to look that up for you. May I please have your order confirmation number?
Romie: The second order was #91305349
Romie: Actually that looks like the first one too
Romie: The correction one says also " [Incident: 080826-000126]"
May: Ok ok
May: I can go ahead and waive your shipping and we will send you a ndw set of invites. Is that ok with you ma'am
Romie: waive the initial shipping on the first stuff sent?
May: ok we can go ahead and to that for your
May: Is there anything else I can assist you with?
Romie: Sorry, one of the lines wasn't clear "ok we can go ahead and to that for your"?
Romie: ?
May: We will waive your shipping on your first order and process a resolve order in replacement of the missing invites
Romie: Great! When should I get those invites?
May: after 2 business days
May: that is on 9/3/08
Romie: Ouch. Fine. Not happy, won't use you again...
May: All orders are processed and shipped on business days only.
May: And monday is an official holiday and we do not ship on that day
Romie: Yeah, but this is your mistake, not mine, so now I am being delayed for your mistakes - TWICE. Really not my problem and you should fix it. If it was shipped out today, overnight on Saturday delivery I could get it. That is what I expect after TWO mistakes from your company.
Romie: You should go out of your way to make this right, not make it worse!!
Romie: Still there? Extra note: I hadn't gotten an answer for a good chunk of time and got the impression May was hoping I went away
May: We can go ahead and do that for your ma'am but still we can not guarantee on that
Romie: Fine

So, I am sure there are other places you can buy theme party stuff from (I am about to walk out the door to some stores I know about to see if I can get the right invites now) and I advise you to use someone else.

Update: Put up a small one here, nothing good

Turning Heads

Last night MLO was running around the house like a crazy girl. She was laughing hysterically having a great time.

At one point I grabbed her to button up her nightgown (as she had only let me do one button when she put it on).

After I was done, she asked me what I had done and I told her I had buttoned the back of her jammy dress.

She wanted to see it so put her hands on either side of her head and tried to turn her head around so she could see her back.

Hubby and I were rolling with laughter as she kept trying.

She eventually gave up on the head turning thing and tried to swing her clothes around (without taking her arms out of the nightgown).

Best Short Film (in Cannes Film Festival)

Film name: Struck



Director : Taron Lexton
Running Time : 07:00
Year : 2007
Country : U.S.A.
Category : Fiction

On his way to work one day, Joel (Bodhi Elfman) is impaled through the chest by a three-foot arrow. But it doesn't harm him. And it won't come out. So Joel has to learn to deal -- both with his newfound protrusion and his own painful loneliness. He tries to go to work, to date women, but no one seems ready to accept his strange flaw. Little does he know, his life is about to change forever...

My Typing Speed

84 words

Speed test

Got this from here

Having a blogging block

You know writer's block, I got blog block. So just wishing everyone Happy St. Patty's day :)



(I stole this image from here)

Really funny

I must be evil because I found this REALLY funny (click on the link).

Happy Leap Day

Just reminding everyone to enjoy the extra day we have today (go do something super fun)!

Song in Head

Going on a trip in our favorite rocket-ship. Zooming through the skies...

5 bonus points for any parent (or non-parent) who could finish the above line - it is on a loop in my head :)

Give-away

Winners are:
Nat King Cole - HomeandHearth
The Three Tenors - Deborah
John Denver - Earthmama

Update: Giveaway now closed. Will announce winner Sunday or Monday :)

So there is another give-away happening at Rocks in My Dryer and I thought I would play along.

I seem to always be swimming in new CDs (I buy a lot) so they end up being the easiest thing for me to give-away. I have three CDs for you to pick from:


1. Nat King Cole, The Very Best of




2. The Three Tenors, The Best of... The Millennium Collection




3. John Denver, 16 Biggest Hits



How to Win
1. Leave a comment below with which one you would like (please be sure I can reach you)
2. Give-away closes Saturday the 2nd at midnight
3. I will randomly pick winners Sunday, post it and try to contact the winners.

Why I Love California

I am a California girl (not the classic looking one necessarily - more in spirit).

I grew up in Sacramento and loved visiting the Redwoods (with the oldest trees on Earth) and Yosemite. I stayed in San Francisco for a little bit too. My grandmother lives in Santa Cruz (in the Monterey Bay Area) and we visit there all the time. I now live in an outer suburb of Los Angeles.

I love how we have so much coast line, anywhere you live you can drive to the ocean (it may be a longish drive, but here in California driving for five hours is nothing). But then we also have the mountains and farm land and forests and rivers and wine country and so on.

I heard once that California makes almost everything it needs within the state (except tin or something like that).

While I love to travel and see other places, I would love to explore all of California too. There is so much to see and it is so big that you could spend a lifetime exploring all of it.

One of my favorite childhood memories is going to Yosemite with my class. We stayed in those big tent cabins (one of the boys and one for the girls). We got to stay up as late as we wanted and sit around the fire. We climbed trees, mountains and ran until our feet gave out. We learned about the different animals and how to be very still so you could watch a deer eat.

I love my state and will always call it home.

Children's rights

Sorry - just going slightly political

Just for a moment, I want to share this:

Excerpt: ‘Memo to the President Elect’ — Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has advice for next president.

It moved me to tears and I hope whoever wins this next election takes a good look at what she is saying here, because I agree with it all.

Something silly and creative

Just thought this was a cute and fun idea.

Strange trend

So yesterday I picked up MLO from daycare. She was telling me all about what they did, giving me blow-by-blow by each friend.

At the end she was telling me who didn't cry and that one girl did.

When I asked why the one girl did cry:

"Because (pause) it is dark outside."

Not sure where this is coming from.

Because...

MLO was at grandma's house last night because it was hubby's birthday (HAPPY BIRTHDAY) and we went out to dinner.

When I went to pick her up she was banging away at grandma's piano. Turns out they had spent a bunch of time looking at music and MLO had been playing the songs.

MLO started pulling binders (grandma has a lot of original sheet music of which some is kept in binders) out and putting them on the floor. I told her we should probably put them on the piano bench and not the floor. She agreed and moved them to the bench.

After that was done she start putting them on the floor again.

I asked her why she was putting them on the floor:

"Because (pause for dramatic effect) it is dark outside"

Can't argue with that sort of logic.